


Harpooned

by okapi



Series: Harpooned 'verse [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Fem!Sherlock, First Meetings, Genderswap, Guide John, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, PTSD John, Sentinel Sherlock, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Sherlock's Mind Palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 08:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3563069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sentinel Sherlock and Guide John cross paths on a crowded Underground platform. They meet again the next day at Bart's. </p><p>Hurt/comfort. Fem!Johnlock. First attempt at Sentinelverse. Inspired by this <a href="http://themadkatter13fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/113352159488/sherlock-au-basics-sentinelverse">Sentinelverse primer</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadKatter13">TheMadKatter13</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sherlock threw the harpoon in the bushes.

It didn’t help.

None of the cabs would take her.

She retrieved it and tapped down the stairs to the station, turning up her shields at the sensory onslaught. Well, all but one of her shields. Her nose and sinuses were congested, rendering her olfactory sense useless.

_Allergies. Tedious._

The crowd on the platform parted as Sherlock approached, giving her the widest berth possible considering the time of day and the multitude of travellers simultaneously returning to their domiciles. All eyes were on her, her dark expression as disquieting as her blood-splattered clothing and the primitive weapon in her hand.

As the train approached, Sherlock sneezed.

Loud. Hard.

It was a toddler’s sneeze, and Sherlock’s handkerchief flew from her pocket just in time to catch two heavy ribbons of mucus. She blew her nose with one hand.

The doors opened. Passengers spilled out. A commotion erupted two car-lengths away as a pregnant woman was hoisted onto a stretcher amidst the stream of disembarking.

Sherlock Holmes inhaled. And froze.

She filtered one tiny strand of fragrance from the dozens that assaulted her.

_Guide!_

_H-h-her Guide?_

Sherlock archived the scent immediately, dropping one plump bead onto a glass slide, covering it with a second slide, and placing it in the most guarded site of her Mind Palace. Her second attempt to pull air through her nose was blocked by thick secretions. She scanned the crowd as they skirted her motionless form and filled the compartment opposite her. She blew her nose again. And inhaled.

_The Guide was not there._

The doors closed. The train disappeared into the tunnel.

Sherlock stood unmoving on the platform. She lowered her shields briefly, scanning up and down.

_The Guide was not there._

She surfaced and walked the entire distance home.

* * *

 The harpoon hit the sofa. Sherlock stripped, showered, and swallowed two antihistamine tablets dry. Then she sat cross-legged on her bed in her best dressing gown. She closed her eyes and returned to the slide, to the bead of scent.

Bit by bit, she constructed her Guide.

_Female._

Well, biologically born female. The hormones were unmistakable. Whether she or he or they were living as a woman was inconclusive, but ‘she,’ for now.

_Tea._

She was soaked in it. Black, two sugars, hot, strong.

 _British_.

Amidst the tannins was a trace of coffee. She had drunk a coffee recently, perhaps immediately before crossing Sherlock’s path. An expensive coffee, of the burnt bean, frothed milk, espresso, best-part-of-a-fiver variety.

Someone must have treated her because the luxury brew contrasted with the cheapness of the rest of her.

_Cheap soap, cheap detergent._

_Wool. Jumper. Also cheap._

Sherlock recognized two distinct disinfectants.

First, the image of a glass canister filled with blue liquid and combs and scissors flashed in her mind. Barber shop, not salon.

Short hair. She’d had a haircut today.

The second odour had a stronger bite, hospital-grade, with a hint of…

…lemon.

_Bart’s!_

Sherlock’s heart beat faster.

_Patient? Doctor? Staff?_

Even if she were a one-time visitor, Sherlock would find her. She would find her because the more that Sherlock considered the scent and the Guide, the more certain she was that this Guide was, in fact, _her_ Guide.

No one could smell that…

… _perfect_.

_Pairbonding._

An antiquated notion, or so Sherlock had thought just hours earlier. Like virginity, it was a construct used to sell treacly novels and saccharine films to Mutes. Guides were rare; Sentinels, like herself, even rarer. Most chose to hide their entire lives. Once upon a time, a Sentinel like her sister would have been a powerful Prime, but she today was a civil servant, ostensibly occupying a minor position in the current administration. Even the Towers of old had fallen; they were tourist attractions now, places for bridal parties to take picturesque photos.

Sherlock returned to her analysis.

_Metal, something metal. Aluminium. Rubber. Wood._

Sherlock shook her head.

_Think!_

Her eyes flew open. Her breath caught.

_Oil. Gun oil. No powder._

The Guide had cleaned a gun, but not fired one.

 _Now we’re getting somewhere! Who_ _had guns in London?_

_Police…criminals…military._

_Military. The haircut. The budget wardrobe and toiletries. Even the expensive coffee. Someone treating a servicewoman._

_Aluminium, rubber, wood._

_Cane!_

_An_ injured _servicewoman._

_Receiving therapy at Bart’s? Visiting a mate? Working? Volunteering?_

Sherlock reached for her mobile and tapped the screen.

_Stamford._

_Stamford knew everyone at Bart’s._

_Everyone at Bart’s knew Stamford._

_Moreover, everyone at Bart’s_ liked _Stamford._

_No one at Bart’s liked Sherlock._

_Except Stamford._

_And Molly._

Sherlock hit ‘send’ and tossed the device on the bedside table. She steepled her fingers at her lips.

With Stamford’s help, she would find her Guide. Tomorrow.

Tonight she would focus on what she knew: her Guide was an armed, short-haired, wounded servicewoman with a taste for woolly jumpers and tea.

But there was so much, too much, that Sherlock did not know. She fell back on the mattress and curled on her side. She ached to know how Guide’s hair smelled (cheap shampoo, no product) and how her breath smelled (first morning sourness, after tea, toothpowder crisp). She imagined burying her nose in the Guide’s armpits and groin and memorizing the bouquet of each. She would map all her pulse-points: behind ears and knees, at wrists and elbows and neck and ankles. Sweat-soaked and freshly showered. Every form and fashion.

She would know the scent of her Guide. In its entirety.

And then she would imprint her with her own.

“OH!” groaned Sherlock at the thought of their combined fragrance, a pairbonded scent. She put a fist in her mouth and brought her knees closer to her chest. She breathed in deeply.

Her transport began to betray her. Her biology, too.

The room spun.

Sherlock saw, heard, and felt nothing.

She smelled _everything_.

Every rubbish bin. Every clogged toilet. Every pot of curry and burnt piece of toast within a four block radius. The mass influx of odours overwhelmed her, and she retched, turning the duvet beneath her head dark with emesis. The olfactory assault continued, unrelenting. Sherlock’s stomach twisted in knots; her mouth opened in a silent scream.

She would have stayed that way until dehydration or Mycroft’s minions claimed her, but for the relatively short half-life of the antihistamines she had taken. As the plasma concentration of the drug waned, its vasodilation-inhibiting properties did as well.

In short, Sherlock Holmes’ stuffy nose saved her life.

She began to breathe through her mouth, and without the unceasing barrage of aromas, she drifted, exhausted, into blank, blissful, senseless sleep.

Until morning.

* * *

Sherlock checked her messages and the time and then stumbled to the toilet.

 _Awful_.

She turned away from the mirror. She had…an hour…to not look awful, and she needed to not look awful because she was certain, as certain as she had been of anything in her life, that she would find the Guide.

Her Guide.

Today.


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s okay, Clara. It’s okay.”

“John! My water broke!”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“The contractions!”

“They’ll start. Just a few more seconds.” John watched the tunnel wall speed by through the window. “And an ambulance will meet us. You’re fine. Everything’s okay. This is what you’ve been waiting for. It’s time.”

“Oh-oh-oh! Having a baby on the bloody tube! A bit inconvenient!” she huffed.

“Welcome to motherhood,” said John. Clara glared at her, but then her face fell. “John? John!” She looked down at the sodden bottom half of her dress. “I’m scared,” she whispered. Her eyes filled with tears.

_Damn. Fuck. Shit._

“John!”

_Watson! What kind of solider are you? What kind of doctor? What kind of Guide?_

The answer was simple: a broken one.

John closed her eyes and slowly, painfully, lowered her shield.

_Just Clara. Just Clara._

John focused on the hand in hers, viciously fighting back the barrage of emotions that struck her from all sides like pelting rain. The ogling crowd closed in around them.

“Breathe, i-i-in and ou-ou-out. Good girl. Here we go. Slowly.” John rose, leaning on her cane. The sea of passengers parted, and she led Clara to through the open doors to the waiting stretcher.

Once on the platform, John let go of Clara’s hand and lifted her shields. She turned her head.

And stared.

Some distance away was a woman. With a harpoon. Covered in blood. Wiping her nose with a handkerchief.

It was like a photograph in a modern art gallery. Or the cover of a mystery novel. Or an absurd picture postcard. John had the urge to laugh; she also wanted to move closer.

“John! John!”

John blinked. Clara was being hauled up the stairs. “She’s a doctor! And my sister-in-law! Well, ex, but still. Aren’t you coming?!”

“Yes, yes, of course.” John hurried after the stretcher, cane under her arm.

* * *

“Take the money, John.” Clara pressed the wad of bills in John’s hand for a third time. “Get a cab. Get some rest. You were wonderful. Thank you. We’ve got it from here.” She winked and turned back to the tiny bundle in her arms.

John nodded. She stood and turned toward the door, wincing. Her shields had not been lowered like this in months. But she would have had to be a very different John Watson to not answer the mother’s fearful, anguished pleas and not revel in the sheer joy that followed the birth. She limped out of the building, physically and mentally drained, shields locked tight, dreading the return to her spartan bedsit.

_Get some rest._

_If only._

* * *

John laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. She closed her eyes and felt the bullet rip through her shoulder. Felt her shields drop as her body crumpled in the sun-baked dust. Felt the nightmare without become the nightmare within. Every emotion of the battlefield rushed in on her from ally and enemy alike: bloodthirsty wrath, fetid hate, distraught confusion and disbelief…

But mostly…

Fear.

Fear clawed at her, ripping her mind as she retreated. She scrambled to find a haven, no matter how small. Within herself. There was none. No corner where the fear did not follow, shrieking, shredding.

This was why Guides weren’t allowed on the front lines, but wrong place, wrong time; war was hell; whatever cliché you fancied.

War blew the old John Watson to bits. And the shoulder wound was the least of the damage. Months of rehabilitation, carefully repairing her body and mind. Her shields were now more like brick walls than the agile barriers they had once been. The limp remained, so did the tremor. Nothing for it, they said.

She turned on her side.

She was not swooning, she reminded herself; she was just remembering swooning. Only slightly less harrowing the hundredth time it replayed in her mind. But soon her thoughts turned from Afghanistan to the Underground. To the woman with the harpoon.

John laughed. She did not recognize the sound.

_Where had the woman been? Where was she going? With the giant spear and the bloody clothes and the resolute expression, she looked like a mythological hero, fresh from the fray, victorious against some legendary monster._

_Or maybe she was a guard, a watchman, in a Tower, keeping vigil over…Christ…_

_She looked like a Sentinel._

_Impossible. Sentinels were all but extinct. Like dinosaurs. Sholto was an exception._

John speculated all manner of things about the woman; plot-knitting and adventure-weaving kept her mind pleasantly occupied.

Until morning.

* * *

The mobile rang.

“Stamford. Hullo. Good, good to see you yesterday. No, no plans.” John looked around the bedsit. “That’s very kind, but I couldn’t impose…Well, alright. Yes, yes, I think so. Okay. See you then.”

John sighed.

Another day.


	3. Chapter 3

 

Sherlock let one drop of solution fall. The door opened.

“Uh, sorry that I am late, I went to the old laboratory, which is, now, of course…”

“A café,” finished Sherlock.

_It’s her._

**_It’s her._ **

“Sorry to interrupt. I am looking for Stamford. Mike Stamford. Have you seen her?” _The woman with the harpoon. What are the odds?_

Sherlock shook her head. She laid the pipette carefully down on the counter. She buttoned her suit jacket and smoothed the front with two hands.

**_Haircut says military. Standing at parade-rest. Forgotten about the leg. Psychosomatic? Injured in action? The scent, the scent, I need the scent to be sure…_ **

Sherlock sneezed.

John held out a handkerchief. “Bless you.” _Definitely her._

“Thank you,” said Sherlock. **_No tan above the wrist. Abroad but not on holiday._** She turned her back, buried her nose in the cotton cloth, and inhaled deeply.

**_Tea, gun oil, wool. Yes, yes, yes. Definitely her._ **

With a magician’s sleight-of-hand, Sherlock slipped the handkerchief into her jacket pocket. “Which was it—Afghanistan or Iraq?” she asked abruptly.

John looked puzzled. “Afghanistan. Uh, I believe I saw you on the tube yesterday.” _And fantasised about you all night. Christ, you are a sight: a Roman goddess in a Savile Row suit that costs half my pension._ “You had a harpoon.”

“None of the cabs would take me.”

John laughed. Loudly.

Sherlock’s eyes dilated as she archived the sound. It was a giggle: high-pitched, buoyant, cheerful, more characteristic of a woman half the Guide’s age.

Sherlock wanted to hear it again. And again. To be responsible for its production. Again and again.

John smiled and reached out her hand. “Watson, John Watson. John is, uh, a nickname.”

“Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is not a nickname.”

Smaller eruption of laughter this time. John licked her lips and shook her head slightly. “No, I bet it’s not.”

_Posh git._

_**Perfect.** _

_Lovely._

Sherlock lowered her shields. There was a delicious moment of anticipation and then—

Their hands touched.

“Christ!” yelped John. _Christ, Christ, Christ!_ She snapped her arm back like she’d been electrocuted. “You’re a Sentinel!” She stumbled, gripping the cane with two white-knuckled hands to stay upright.

Sherlock moved to steady her, but the alarm in the Guide’s eyes made her stop.

“You’re a Guide. I am _your_ Sentinel,” said Sherlock slowly.

“ _Mine_? Pairbonding doesn’t exist. Not anymore.”

Sherlock shrugged.

John’s voice shook. “Listen, mate, I don’t know what you’re thinking in that,” _beautiful, Christ, I’d love to touch that hair_ , “head of yours, but I don’t lower my shields for anyone. Ever. Well, I mean, I did yesterday, but that was an exception. My sister-in-law, well, ex-sister-in-law, went into labour.”

“On the tube,” supplied Sherlock.

“Yeah.”

Sherlock recalled John’s words as she had entered the laboratory. “You studied at Bart’s. With Stamford. You’re a doctor. And a soldier.”

“Yeah, used to be, but, that’s not the point, the point is that as Guides go, I’m the most broken one you’ll ever encounter. And I’m not interested in pairbonding. It’s not personal. You seem,” _extraordinary_  “interesting, but I am in recovery—“

“From your injury. Wounded in action. Your limp is psychosomatic.” Sherlock looked down at John’s hands, still grasped tightly around the handle of the cane; one quivered. “The tremor in your hand also. Was there an actual wound?”

John huffed impatiently. “Yes, yes, and yes, left shoulder. Once again, not the point. The point is that I can’t afford to jeopardize my progress—“

“What progress?! You still have the limp. You still have the tremor. How long has it been? Your therapist is not very good.”

“My shields were destroyed! My mind was completely violated! I spent months in Quiet Rooms, rebuilding. The shields do not come down. So whatever bodice-ripping, mind-bending fantasy you’re entertaining…”

“I am a philosopher and a scientist! I do not entertain fantasy!” roared Sherlock. Then she calmed. “Come inside my mind. You don’t have to lower your own shields to trespass mine.”

“And why would I do that?”

“It’ll be interesting. Aren’t you at all curious? Have a look around. That’s all. What else do you have to do today? Lunch with Stamford? She’s not coming. Bit of matching-making on her part, I suspect. You could, I guess, _watch telly_.” The last was a sneer. “Or go to an _appointment_.” Then Sherlock’s voice softened. “I don’t enjoy lowering my shields either, but it’s helpful for my work.”

“Work? Experiments?” John looked at the instruments and apparatus on the counter. “Or philosophies? Or harpooning?”

Sherlock tugged the end of her jacket down and said haughtily. “I consult with the police on crimes. The world’s only consulting detective. I invented the job.”

“The police don’t consult amateurs. Why are you saying all this? One second inside and I’ll know you’re lying.”

“Precisely. So why lie?”

Their eyes locked. Then John blinked and sighed.

“Alright. Can we sit for this? Psychosomatic or not, my leg is killing me. And lock the damn door.”

* * *

_Click!_

Sherlock adjusted the height of her stool so that they were eye-to-eye; she slotted her stretched legs between John’s wide-spread ones.

John placed a hand on either side of Sherlock’s head.

They looked into each other’s eyes. Then John closed hers. Sherlock followed suit.

* * *

_HOLY MARY! This is your mind?!_

It was the easily largest space John had ever entered mentally—and quite possibly physically as well.

**_Yes, welcome._ **

_It’s a…_

**_…palace._ **

John climbed the steps and crossed the threshold. She wandered slowly, like a tourist, head swivelling, mouth gaping at her surroundings. It was as big as Versailles and outfitted like the Bodleian, with vast wings that branched off the main corridor; floor-to-ceiling bookcases that stretched for kilometres; colossal archives filled with images, numbers, and words; spiral staircases and ladders.

John quickly came upon a section that was thoroughly scorched, black and grey streaks curling up the walls and arching overhead, tall piles of still-warm ashes scattered, clearly the scene of disaster.

_What happened here?_

**_I zoned last night._ **

_And you’re still standing?_

**_By a fluke of pharmakinetics, yes._ **

_Christ._

John strode across the main corridor to a wing that was empty save for a bookcase along one wall and a large safe in the centre. John inhaled and smiled. The room smelled like...

...tea. Good tea.

The safe was of the old Hollywood variety, the kind that was always being robbed from stagecoaches by masked bandits. It was wrapped in heavy chains secured with a dungeonesque padlock.

_Dare I ask what is in this?_

**_See for yourself._ **

The chains fell with a loud clank and the combination lock spun right, left, then right. John pushed the handle and swung the door out.

The interior held one small rectangle of covered glass.

**_I noticed your scent on the tube yesterday._ **

John stared.

**_It is the sample I used to draw certain conclusions about you._ **

John’s eyes moved to the wall; two shelves of the bookcase were full. She selected one thin work.

_You figured all this out just by smelling me once in a crowded tube station._

**_Yes._ **

_You didn’t  actually see me._

**_No._ **

_Extraordinary._

**_You think so?_ **

_Yeah, quite extraordinary._

John returned the tome to the shelf.

**_That’s not what people normally say._ **

_What do they normally say?_

**_Piss off._ **

John laughed. One of the books on the shelf buzzed.

_Well, people are idiots._

**_Practically everyone is, yes._ **

John noted the wing had a rear exit, covered by a heavy aubergine curtain. She saw the intermittent glow and heard soft noises emanating from the other side of the velvet drape. She nodded and did a quick about-face, returning to the main corridor.

**_John, I…_ **

_It’s all fine. And quite discrete, compared with some people’s minds. As much as I scoffed at the pairbonding comment, I do believe that a woman’s fantasies—sexual and otherwise—are her own. If it makes things any less embarrassing, I thought about you, too, last night. After seeing you on the platform._

A loud groan echoed into the corridor. Then John heard the sound of velvet ripping and heavy doors clanging shut and bolts locking. Silence filled the corridor. She smiled, but said nothing. Then she peeked into another room: fireplace, cozy sitting chairs, mantelpiece with framed mirror, books and papers piled on the floor.

**_My place. Central London._ **

_Is it always full of rubbish?_

**_Well, um, obviously I can straighten things up a bit._ **

_Just teasing. It very nice. Very nice indeed._

**_Yes, yes, I thought so. It has a second bedroom if…_ **

John strode down the corridor, passing a wing that appeared to be a library, but manila file folders far outnumbered books. Newspapers, journals, carefully organized. A couple of blank whiteboards stood at the side and a large detailed map of London was spread across the far wall.

**_Cases. Cold cases. Potential cases. Nothing current, unfortunately._ **

_War room of sorts?_

**_Yes._ **

_So you weren’t lying about the detective business._

**_No._ **

John’s eyes went to the far end of the corridor. She tilted her head to get a better view. An entire wing, possibly two, wrecked, burnt, smashed, and shattered. The devastation looked old.

_When was the last time you had a Guide in here?_

**_Rehab. The old fashioned kind._ **

_Junkie? You?_

John was surprised at first and then she turned thoughtful.

_Well, I guess it stands to reason. Managing sensory overload and whatnot. They didn’t do a very good job, the Guides._

**_To be fair, I didn’t let them do a very good job._ **

_Ah._

**_They got lost. A lot._ **

_What, you put up a maze?_

**_I prefer the term ‘labyrinth.’_ **

_I’m sure you do._ John smirked. Then she turned back toward the entrance. When she passed by the newer wreckage, she stopped. The spot where her fingers touched crumbled before her eyes.

_The Guide in me wants to help you repair this, to heal this, but that would require lowering my shields. I c-c-can’t do that. It’s not safe._

**_We could go to Baker Street, to the flat. It’s my territory. Your safety would be assured._ **

_Nowhere is safe, Ms. Holmes. And no one can assure me of anything anymore._

**_Sherlock, please. At least while you’re inside me._ **

_Alright, Sherlock._ John heard the faint familiar buzz behind her. _Doesn’t change things. Lowering my shields is dangerous._

**_Maybe you don’t need therapy; maybe you don’t need Quiet Rooms; maybe you need something different…something dangerous._ **

John sat down on the steps and put her head in her hands.

_I don’t know._

**_Where’s your cane now, John?_ **

_I don’t need a…_

John paused and then smiled.

_I don’t need a cane when I’m in your mind._

**_Precisely._ **

John stood up, back straight; she licked her lips and pushed her chin out.

_Okay._


	4. Chapter 4

They drank tea in silence.

Then by mutual and mute understanding, shoes were kicked off under the sofa. John’s cane joined the shoes. They sat as close as two people of such disparate statures could without actually touching.

“I’ll get ready,” said John. “There are certain things I need to, for lack of a better word, retrieve before we start.”

“What do I do?”

John took Sherlock’s hands and placed them palm down her shoulders. “Do not touch my head,” she warned. Sherlock nodded, warming at even the innocuous touch. **_My Guide._** John took a deep breath and let it out slowly, loudly. Then she closed her eyes.

Sherlock watched. The trembling commenced immediately. John’s entire body shook; her brow furrowed. Sherlock studied her face.

**_If we were pairbonded, I would know the story behind every line, spot, mole, and scar. I would be able to read every twitch of the lip and crease of the forehead as if it were written in headline type. We wouldn’t necessarily need to touch, communication would flow back and forth through the ether. But the touching…the touching would be…_ **

John opened her eyes. “Okay. You can stop.” Sherlock’s hands went to her own thighs. John rolled up her sleeves and then placed her hands on the side of Sherlock’s head.

“Here we go.” She closed her eyes again.

* * *

Broom in one hand, pail in the other, John laughed.

Stone wall. Moat. Drawbridge.

She peered down as she crossed over the murky water.

_Are there crocodiles?_

**_Would you like there to be? You were concerned about safety. I made some reinforcements._ **

_A palace inside a bloody castle._

John shook her head, smiling, and climbed the stairs. She surveyed the damage once again and quickly went to work. Sweeping.

On the sofa in Baker Street, John rubbed Sherlock’s temples gently as her broom collected the cinders inside Sherlock’s mind. She filled seven large bags, tying each tight and setting it outside the edifice.

 ** _I feel better._** Sherlock shook her head, seeking a more precise word. **_Lighter._**

 _Good._ Hands on hips, John huffed; her eyes travelled up the dark streaks to the ceiling.

 _But anyone can clear debris, Sherlock. This requires a Guide. Ladder, please._ One appeared.

On the sofa, John’s thumbs dug deeper into Sherlock’s temples, feeling both their pulses quicken.

Inside Sherlock’s Mind Palace, John rubbed her hands together as if trying to warm them. When she opened them, she laughed.

_Now this is a new one. Honey._

**_I keep bees in the garden. They’re fascinating creatures._ **

John smeared the honey on the wall. Sherlock jumped.

**_John?!_ **

John rubbed the viscous paste deeper and watched as the black colour dissolved into a cream and the material itself harden from charred remains to unyielding wood. She continued her ministrations until wood turned to marble. Then she moved farther up the wall, climbing rung by rung, spreading the honey in thick layers with bare hands, like a child’s finger-painting.

Sherlock groaned. On the sofa, John’s massaging fingers travelled to her jaw, her cheeks, her eyes sockets, the bridge of her nose, and the valley of her sinuses.

When John rubbed her hands together this time, pieces of honeycomb appeared as well as the golden goo. She smiled and slapped her hands against the wall, sticking the chunks to the wall.

_As a Guide, I have to warn you about the risks of zoning, Sherlock. You were very lucky this time. As a physician, I’d recommend a more comprehensive approach to alleviating your allergies._

**_N-n-noted._** Sherlock moaned. **_John. John. John._**

Outside, John’s fingers moved to Sherlock’s forehead and then her scalp as inside she neared the ceiling. John’s ladder transformed into a scaffold, and she worked, like Michelangelo, on her back, brushing the walls with the healing salve.

**_John. John. John!_ **

Sherlock’s voice echoed through the corridor, but John refused to be distracted from her task: the end was in sight. When she had finished, she sat up, legs dangling from her precipice and looked down at her work. The entire space had been restored. She climbed down and surveyed it from below. She nodded, letting a satisfied smile creep across her face. She rinsed her hands in the pail and dried them with a rag.

_Beautiful. Your mind is quite the masterpiece._

**_Hmm. Good. Body’s just transport._ **

_Really?_ _Well, your transport just came all over mine._

Their eyes flew open. Sherlock hurriedly pulled up and fastened her trousers and straightened her blouse, patently ignoring the damp smear on the thigh of John’s jeans. She bolted off the sofa and began to pace.

“John, I am extremely…”

John gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “These experiences are intimate. A physical response is more common than not.”

“Not for me, it’s not!”

John smiled. “I enjoyed helping you.” She reached for her cane beneath the sofa.

“Let me help you.”

“I’ve got it,” said John, pushing on the cane, inching herself off the sofa.

“No, I mean, let me help you inside your mind.”

“No one can help me.”

“Let me try. It could be a new chapter for you. It could be the making of you!”

“Or make me worse than ever!”

“You are no coward, John Watson.”

John gave a mirthless chuckle. “You know nothing, Sherlock Holmes.”

Sherlock bristled. “Then. Show. Me.”

“Alright.” The cane clanked on the floor, and John fell back on the sofa. She ripped a bracelet off her wrist and held it up to Sherlock’s gaze. “This is the number to call. They’ll pick up the body. Or what’s left of it.” She jerked her head to the sofa. “Sit,” she ordered.

Sherlock sat.


	5. Chapter 5

John took Sherlock’s hands in her own.

Sherlock leaned closer and caught John’s gaze: brown eyes so haunted that Sherlock felt a pang of...

...some awkward emotion that was largely foreign to her.

John placed Sherlock’s hands at her own temples.

Then Sherlock closed her eyes and slipped into John’s mind.

* * *

All colour was gone.

Sherlock was in a grainy wartime photograph or a newsreel from an antique picture house. She thought of the Blitz. But the destruction was more complete, then environs more devastated. It looked like…

…Hiroshima.

Sherlock clomped—her feet were shod with military-style boots—through the dust. She hiked by outcroppings of rocks. Dry brush crackled underfoot. She marched by the occasional roll of cut barbed wire, fencing nothing, guarding nothing.

**_Where do you keep your thoughts? Your empathy?_ **

_The same place Mutes do._

Sherlock frowned, but she continued her trek across the barren landscape. Then she spotted a patch of green in the distance. As far as she could see, it was the only oasis of colour in the bleak black-and-white setting. As she approached, she could discern a traditional English rose garden surrounded by strips of lush lawn.

And, in the centre, a harpoon stuck in the soil.

Sherlock laughed. When she crossed onto the grass, her appearance changed. She was wearing the bloody clothes from the previous day.

_This is where I thought of you. Last night. You certainly know how to make a first impression. And a second._

**_As do you._ **

Sherlock took a deep breath. The air was dry and still, and she easily noted John’s now-familiar scent.

**_Where are you? You’re here._ **

_Hiding. You see, Sherlock, you were wrong._

**_Wrong about what?_ **

_I am very much a coward._

**_Nonsense._ **

Sherlock left the garden, transforming back into her original clothes and boots. She plodded through the dirt until she came to a mound of rubble: bricks, fallen branches, and twisted scraps of metal in a kind of dystopian sculpture. Sherlock shielded her eyes and scanned the desert around her, but the pile of debris was the only landmark in this part of the wasteland.

And it smelled.

Like John.

Sherlock bent low and peered into the heap.

Two eyes blinked back at her.

**_John! This is where you hide._ **

_This is where I sleep. And hide._

**_Come out. Now._ **

_No._

Sherlock frowned. She was completely ill-equipped to deal with the recalcitrant child that was John Watson in this moment.

**_If you don’t come out, I’m coming in._ **

_It’s not safe, Sherlock. You need to go._

**_There’s nothing out here, John._ **

Silence.

**_Okay. I’m coming in._ **

_Sherlock!_

Sherlock dropped to the ground and crawled into the darkness. She curled her body around John’s, more atop her, given the scarce space.

_Ugh! You aren’t exactly a petite flower._

**_Neither are you._ **

In the Baker Street flat as well, they made an awkward pair, spooned on their sides, Sherlock’s form practically covering John’s, her hands still pressed to John’s head.

Sherlock shifted. And then shifted again, seeking a position that alleviated some of the pressure on John.

**_My weight…_ **

_Forget what I said. It’s good, actually. I…uh…I…quite like it. Feels...safer._

John blushed. Sherlock felt the slight increase in John’s body temperature. She brought her lips together tightly, resisting the urge to lick. Or nuzzle.

**_What do we do now?_ **

_I normally just…wait. You could…uh…tell me about the harpoon._

**_Well, it was actually quite interesting…_ **

But Sherlock had barely begun her tale when John’s body relaxed and her steady breaths became interrupted by soft snores. Abandoning her story, Sherlock initiated cataloguing and archiving additional data on John, starting with the snoring.

Until the first blast.

Then the world outside their primitive refuge was alive with noise: explosions, gunfire, screaming, aircraft overhead, and motors gunning, followed by more explosions, more screaming, and more gunfire. Yelps of surprise, cries of agony, and calls for help. In a flurry of languages. From her vantage point, Sherlock saw boots, bare feet, and sandals. All running.

John’s body went stiff beneath Sherlock’s. The din crescendoed to a roar. The ground shook. The shelter rattled. She turned her head and pressed the side of her face into the dirt. Full-bodied tremors wracked her frame.

_Christ! Christ! Christ!_

John felt the full weight of Sherlock on her. Her lips were at John’s ear.

**_It’s okay, John. It’s okay._ **

Then as suddenly as it began, the noise ceased.

**_See, you’re safe. It’s over. It’s okay._ **

_Go, Sherlock, go! Get out of here! Now!_

**_No! I’m not leaving you!_ **

_Bloody idiot! Do you ever listen? To anyone? That was just the anger and the hate and the chaos. That was not the worst of it, Sherlock._ _Do you know what the worst part of war is? For an empath?_

Sherlock Holmes did not know.

_Fear._

Four letters. One syllable. The word dropped into Sherlock’s consciousness like that first bead of scent on the Underground.

And then the shrieking began.

The deafening screeching drowned out all other sounds, even Sherlock’s pounding heartbeat. The air filled with a stench so foul—beyond what Sherlock had ever smelled at crime scenes or morgues or drug dins—that her stomach lurched. Her mouth went dry. She could not feel John beneath her, though she knew logically, rationally, intellectually, that the Guide was still there. Trembling, gasping, and reeking of panic. Sherlock peeked out. She saw a looming shape that soon filled the entire horizon. John’s entire world.

A monster.

Not metaphorical, allegorical, symbolic.

An _actual_ monster.

Hideous and huge, with a head like an insect, antenna flailing, ridged jaws clenching and unclenching. Its front claws snapped at nothing, and hairy spindly legs projected it forward in skittering motion across the plain. A reptilian tail thrashed back and forth. It was clearly on a mission: searching, seeking, scouring the earth. And, instinctively, Sherlock knew what it was looking for.

It was looking for John.

And, perhaps most surprising of all to Sherlock, was that, in a matter of a day, ‘for John’ meant ‘for Sherlock, too.’

**_You’re safe, John._ **

_SHERLOCK, NO!_

Sherlock rose up, tossing off the caving debris. Then she launched into a lung-burning pace back toward where she'd come. The monster swivelled its beetle-head at the running figure. And scurried after its moving prey.

_NO, NO, NO!_

John tried to stand, but fell to her knees. She put her head in her hands and sobbed. One word kept her rooted in place.

_Coward._

She could not…She could not…

...move.

And just when John thought the shrieking could not get any louder, it did. It sounded like victory. Or agony. John could not tell. And then a new word crowded out the old.

_Sherlock!_

John lifted her chin and—calling on her last ounce of courage—stood and ran, eyes closed, toward the noise. The sun baked the tears and dust on her face into a tight clay. She opened her eyes in time to see Sherlock.

On the edge of the garden.

With the harpoon.

Stabbing the creature in its soft underbelly.

Over and over.

The monster writhed and screeched and fell, sending up clouds of dust.

John coughed.

Sherlock panted and looked at John. She was covered in blood. And grinning.

_You killed it!_

**_You’re safe, John._ **

_I…I…always hid. I never…fought it._

**_Maybe you didn’t have the right weapon. Until now._ **

Sherlock staked the harpoon in the ground. And bowed.

John grinned. And clapped.

_Extraordinary. Quite extraordinary._

* * *

John opened her eyes at the sensation of being lifted and carried, lifted and carried as she had not been since childhood. Down a hallway and through a door. She was placed in the centre of a bed.

“Get some rest, John.”

“Don’t leave.”

“Never.”

And they stayed like that, curled together.

Until morning.

* * *

 Sherlock sprung from the bed at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Impatient, out-of-her-depth, Detective-Inspector footsteps.

“Sherlock! Why aren’t you checking your bloody messages?!”

John grunted and rubbed her eyes. “Uh, loo?” she mumbled.

Sherlock pointed to a door as she passed down the hall toward the sitting room.

Bracing herself against the wall, John stumbled to the toilet and shut the door.

“The suicides. There’s been a fourth. And this one left a note,” said Lestrade impatiently.

“Where?”

“Brixton, Lauriston Gardens. Will you come?”

“Not in a police car. I’ll be right behind.” Sherlock looked back down the hall. “With my…assistant.” Sherlock frowned. “My Guide.”

Lestrade raised both eyebrows, but said simply, “Thank you,” and hurried back down the stairs.

Sherlock leapt and spun with joy. Then she smoothed her hair and shirt and walked slowly back down the hall. She knocked on the toilet door.

“John?”

“Sherlock.” The door opened. John wiped her face with a towel. She looked grave. “The leg. It’s still bad. Maybe the hand, too. I don’t know.”

“Would you like to go to a crime scene? There’s a case.” Sherlock did not attempt to hide her excitement.

John smiled. “God, yes. Get my cane.”

As they moved down the stairs, Sherlock stopped suddenly and turned. John crashed into her.

“Oh, by the way, my sister will kidnap you at some point. And offer you money to spy on me.”

“What should I say?”

“Up to you. You can take the moral high ground. Or we can take the money and split the fee.”

John laughed.

“Taxi!” called Sherlock.

* * *

John picked at her dim sum.

“Are you okay?” asked Sherlock.

“Yes.”

“Well you _have_ just killed a man.”

“Yes, well, I…was just returning the favour. And he wasn’t a very nice man. And I just happened to have the right weapon. Someone taught me recently that that is important.”

Sherlock nodded and smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So…uh…pairbonding.”

“Archaic notion,” Sherlock said dryly. “Bodice-ripping, mind-bending fantasy, isn’t it?”

“Yes, antiquated,” agreed John, chuckling. “Completely old-fashioned. But,” she tilted her head and licked her lips, “could be advantageous were I to continue to assist you with your Work.”

“True. And in the domestic setting to a lesser degree—you did agree to take the room upstairs.” Sherlock’s voice betrayed a hint of uncertainty.

“Indeed I shall.”

“Good.” Sherlock relaxed. “The telepathic feature alone might prove invaluable. In professional and personal matters.”

“I am by no means an expert, but I am to understand that there are two principal forms of pairbonding,” said John.

“Mmm.” Sherlock took a bite of John’s dim sum. “The platonic, collegial pairbond and then the more…uh…”

“Behind the aubergine curtain variety?” suggested John with a smirk.

Sherlock blushed. “Yes.” She covered John’s hand with her own, and let her arousal flow through the physical contact.

“Christ, Sherlock!” It was John’s turn to blush. “Well, that answers that.” John made eye contact with the server. “Bill, please,” she mouthed.

Minutes later, John stood, opening her wallet. “I still want to talk to you about your allergies. And hear the story of the harpoon.”

“There’s time for everything,” said Sherlock, wrapping her scarf around her neck.

John dropped a series of bills on the table. “So, should we take the tube? For sentiment’s sake?”

She looked up but Sherlock was already pushing through the exit door, whistling and yelling,

“Taxi!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a Christmas fic in the universe: [Tidings of Comfort and Joy](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5333786/chapters/12315626).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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